


Favours

by typhe



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Drunk Sex, Impregnation, LHM, Multi, Other, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 14:52:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I knew it was worth holding out for a room with a decent-sized bed.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Favours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gildaurel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildaurel/gifts).



> For [Gildaurel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildaurel), who made me do it. <3

Vanyel stared at the fire and let the light become hazy; his hand was cupped around the stem of his glass, warming the contents, and he sipped slowly and with full awareness of the line his mind danced upon; drunk enough to allow performance without impeding it. It took him a lot of imagination to find the appeal in a woman, even one as pretty as Shavri. _I don't think she'd be offended to know that, and Randi might even be reassured._

He felt no shame in turning to wine, though when compared to the memory he was inevitably mulling over, it seemed an amusingly crude resort. Snowlight was an excellent herbalist, and she had joked heartily about plying a man half her age with delicious aphrodisiacs and intoxicants; afterwards, she had sent Vanyel away to his lover's ekele to enjoy the remaining effects of her potions more thoroughly, and he'd felt an odd longing behind her satisfied smile; he knew she was happy to be unpartnered, but they'd lain together in a dreamlike alchemical illusion of passion, and he felt like a part of her regretted - not that she'd taken him, but that she must send him away. She might just as well have conjured a passing spirit to make love with and then banished it back to the Moonpaths; though as she had said to him, it wasn't about a night for her but for a lifetime. Strange to think of the part of him that had remained with her.

 _They must be nearly three years old, and I haven't even seen them yet. If I don't get another assignment in the next few weeks - I should go back to them before autumn comes. They did swear I'd be welcome..._ He thought of Moondance and Starwind tending to a toddler, and grimaced even as he smiled to himself. _I was so glad to discard the very thought of that burden - who would want it?_

Everyone but himself, apparently. _Of all the ironies._

He looked up at the arrhythmic knock on the door. "Come in," he called. "And lock it behind you, please," he added softly as they entered. He spared them a glance before his eyes were recaptured by the fire; Shavri's hair was down, and she wore a loose shift dress, not exactly signs of a polite dinner call; Randale was walking stiffly in his Whites, seeming as tense as Vanyel had ever seen him. Not so surprising. Shavri was here at her wont, but Randale had come at his request. Van _had_ to speak to Randale, whether Randi wanted to talk about it or not, because Shavri _wasn't_ Snowlight and he couldn't pretend her life was as uncomplicated.

 _She's seventeen and she hadn't even thought of this wild solution to their heartache until I proposed it to her less than a week ago - and I don't know that Randi doesn't hate me for making that proposition._ It would have been so easy to go ahead on Shavri's say-so and never make himself look Randale in the eye about this, but Vanyel couldn't do that to a friend. He _couldn't_.

Though he had little idea what to say. _Lady's eyes, he only got his Whites a month ago and now he's realised he's sterile and his lifebonded's accepting invitations to some pervert's bed. I don't even know how to offer him sympathy without it seeming like an insult. I can't just say to him, I know what it's like, not being what everyone thought you'd be - what man would want to hear that from me?_

Shavri sat on the edge of the couch, Randale joining her a moment later, his hand on her shoulder; she noted the wine keeping warm by the hearth, and laughed nervously. "Care for a taste?" Vanyel reached for two empty glasses, filling each to an inch's depth. He met Randale's fine brown eyes as he handed them over, hoping to see at least a little remaining affection behind his nervousness. If nothing else, he saw fire; shining under pressure was one of Randi's virtues. One of many - Van felt the blood in his temples run hot, and cursed himself silently. _Yes, he's appealing. No, he's not the one who's come here to sleep with me, so there's no point in indulging the thought._ "Try it," he said, attempting to distract his own wandering mind. "I warn you, it's stronger than it tastes. The _Tayledras_ brew it - it's a little unusual."

Randi sniffed the glass delicately before drinking. "As are other Hawkbrother customs, so I hear."

"Touché." Vanyel flourished his own glass, taking the quip as essentially a good sign; if Randi was prepared to joke about this, then hopefully, they'd still be friends by the end of the night. He shuffled his chair along the floor, so he could look close at both of them. "Dear friends, may I speak plain to you?"

They looked at each other, and Shavri nodded. "Please," replied Randale.

"Right. Well." Tipsy though he was, this was _beyond_ embarrassing. "Randi, I really need to hear you say that, that this is alright. I, uh, you needn't worry if I'm going to get...involved. Shavri's - not my type. You know that. And I swear, I've never had a yen for sewing wild oats - it, uh, well." It just seemed to have happened. Of its own accord. Twice now. His father would be very proud, he realised with some distaste - he was unsettled at the thought of finding satisfaction in a bevvy of bastards, for all he knew so many men who would. And when Randale's heart was halfway-broken from knowing he couldn't sire any - the symmetry was cruel, and it wasn't fair, and the least Vanyel could do was offer a little of himself to redress that inequity. "This is - for the two of you, not me. So if you've any doubts of it..."

It was a limp plea. _Please don't resent me and my outland perversions. Don't let me hurt you with an idea, don't let us act on it if it will hurt you. Just take her back to your own bed and let's not speak of it again._

When Randale spoke, it was to Shavri. "If it weren't for me, you two wouldn't have to..."

She sighed, and shook her dark curls. "I wouldn't _want_ to if it weren't for you. You're the man I want to raise a family with. No offence, Van."

"Don't I deserve your offence?" Van replied lightly. He raised his glass languidly, and that won a dark smile from Shavri, who reached out to touch it with her own before downing her drink with a grimace. "Please know, I only want you both to be happy."

"She's not going to be happy with just me," replied Randale.

Vanyel looked to Shavri, uncomfortable with speaking of her as if she wasn't there - _great gods, knowing why she_ is _here? She's here to sleep with_ me _, because she's in love with_ him _. I only hope that makes her happy._ Her eyes were closed, her head against her lifebonded's shoulder, her lips pressed against her empty glass. "And you?" he had to ask.

Randale refilled his own glass, and sipped from it, his face questioning the possibility. "I can't be happy if she's unhappy."

Van raised a hand and twisted his fingers in his own hair, surprised at how much Randi's naïveté hurt him. "I know -" _I remember,_ "- how that feels, believe me - but that's not enough. You can't put your heart and your conscience aside for someone else's, even your lifebonded - especially not your lifebonded. I'm asking if _you're_ going to be happy raising a child that's not of your blood - if you've any doubt of it, I'd far sooner know now than find out after I've caused you the misery."

"I'm sure of it," replied Randi patiently, not flinching before Vanyel's fervour. "I've been thinking of it as if - well, suppose she'd had a child before I met her. Of course I'd love them as my own, I know I would."

Shavri stirred, and her hand sought Randale's. _Not a bad way to look at it_ \- and she, at least, seemed to have faith that it would hold true once their assignation went past the hypothetical. "That makes sense, I suppose. But are you sure you don't mind...it being me?"

This was where he'd expected the most discomfort - where he was daring to provoke it, before it was too late for Randi to object - and he was a little surprised to detect none of it at all. "Only in that I mind it not being me," Randi said softly. "Why would I mind, Van? Could we ask for a better friend than you?"

Vanyel was more surprised by the touch against his shields - and when he opened his mind and accepted the contact, he found both of them reaching for him as one. He felt everything Randi couldn't say of his assent, everything Shavri wouldn't say of her gratitude, enough warmth to drive his skittering wariness quite out of his mind. He was their friend, yes, but he knew how much of an outsider he was among Heralds - how many people still saw him and only thought of the downfall of someone who had shown far more promise than he could ever offer - and he was well aware that he was a sexual pariah. It was a shock to feel the lack of conditions on their affection. _There's no fear that - what I am - will taint them._

He reached out for their hands, gave a wrenchingly brief squeeze to Randi's - _you didn't come here to let me hold you_ \- and Shavri's, he held steady. "Thank you for trusting me," he said to Randale, hoping his mindtouch conveyed his sincerity even as his voice wavered. "I'll walk her home later - I do know how to be a gentleman, you know?"

Randi smiled back with all his considerable charm, and set his glass on the table almost daintily. "Oh Van. Where's the need for that, eh?" He raised his hand boldly to the side of Vanyel's face. "I wasn't planning on going anywhere."

" _Randi?_ "

Randale shrugged, and his fingers brushed against Vanyel's temple. "If you're going to do this for her, then let me do this for you. If you'll have me," he added, uncertain only of Vanyel's appreciation - had he gone _mad_?

Vanyel clumsily reached for a Mindspeech thread, eyebrows raising so far he felt like his hairline might eat them whole. _:You really - why - you're_ curious _, are you?:_

Randi's audacious smile only widened silently. _:Always - and he does hate to feel left out,:_ Shavri replied for him.

Vanyel felt a hot blush rising to meet the touch of Randi's hand - they must have talked about this. About him. Perhaps - extensively. _He only_ ever _turns_ that _look on Shavri. He's lifebonded and no one else matters, men or women - but, gods, I had no idea, I never thought I had even the ghost of a chance._

But he _did._

Wine, or jealousy, or the thrill of novelty, he wouldn't question why Randi had set a hand on him. _This has to be the most unexpected seduction attempt I've ever cheerfully given in to._

He scrabbled for thought as Randi stroked his face and Shavri dropped his hand and looked to him, and her mindtouch was all wordless summer-rain spatters of wants and dreams, not a breath of caution. _She's_ seventeen _, of course she only thinks of intended consequences and never fell ones._ "Shavri - I need you to know, I'll never tell anyone and I hope you don't either."

"I won't -"

"We really can't." Randale's voice was too soft to be a snarl. "If anyone finds out I'm not..."

"Not _what_ , ke'chara?" Vanyel turned to him and leaned into his warm hand for a precious second before Randi dropped it. He could feel the rush of unspoken shame - so sure he'd never be good enough, as a son and a grandson, as a partner, as a man. "Randi, you are not your damned seed. You're a Herald and my friend and I tell you, I know you'll make a fine king some far-off day, and I know you'll be a good father."

It mustn't, couldn't hurt when Randi turned to Shavri for affirmation. "You've not failed me - you never could," she insisted, and Vanyel closed his eyes as she kissed her lifebonded - tightening his shields until not even the slightest knife-like whisper of them could breach the surface of his mind, but he could hear them - breathy, loving sounds - and he fought to ignore his own loneliness. _Not here. Not now._

The touches at his shoulders were a surprise. He let himself be gathered in their arms, let Shavri press against him as she eased him to his feet - always so easy to touch, and it had never meant anything but friendship. _The last time I held her, she was crying -_ He felt Randi's arms slide around him as Shavri slipped away, felt his wiry strength and tentative curiosity. She was slipping off her dress, Van noticed peripherally, his eyes fixed on Randi's flushed and parted lips, the way his breath caught as she stripped herself. _Shavri's, all and always Shavri's, I shouldn't be seeing him like this -_ the hint of the forbidden set Vanyel's blood simmering, and - he dared to glance down below Randale's belt, and felt himself breathing hard in dumb anticipation. _Oh my gods. I could - if he really...oh Randale, you beautiful fool._ He gathered his nerves and pressed his lips to the edge of Randale's.

For a clumsy half-second he wondered if it was all some unthinkable, deliriously drunken mistake, but then Randale turned to meet him, mouth soft and open and tasting of wine, and Vanyel discovered that he was not shy at _all_.

It was long moments, Vanyel's eyes closed and his hands crossing the bounds of genteel comradeship, before he heard Shavri's low gasp. He startled - _Shavri, I'm sorry -_ but Randi laid answering hands against Vanyel's thighs and pulled his face away by the merest inch, looking across at his partner mildly. "What?"

"I could stand to see more of that." She laughed nervously, and threw her dress and her undershift onto Van's empty chair. She was swaying a little on her feet, naked and headstrong, _and beautiful, I suppose_ ; he couldn't have been less sure of what he was to them, inconvenience or interloper or entertainment, but he he felt himself smiling back at her awkwardly. He slid out of Randi's arms, and reached down to snuff the nearest candle out. "Van - please...could you leave the rest?"

He looked to Randale silently. Seeing what Vanyel would have to do with Shavri might be precisely what Randale didn't want. But Randi shrugged invitingly, and Vanyel waved a trembling hand at the candle and brought it back to life with a flicker of his mind. "Showboating tonight, Van?"

"For our lady's pleasure," he replied, husky and sarcastic, and he felt her eyes run over him again. _I promised her, I promised myself I'd give her what she wanted._ She stepped back and settled herself atop his bed, reclining over the pillows - the curves of her were lost under the shadow of the bedcurtains, but her eyes well reminded him why she was there.

Randale raised a speculative eyebrow - tease - and as he turned to follow her, Vanyel wrapped a daring hand around his waist, pulling him recklessly close. _If you'll let me touch you, if you feel what you can do to me_ \- and Randi leaned back, moving against him far too deliberately to allow for any doubt. Vanyel gasped, and reached for the buckle of Randale's belt - _at least I'm not too drunk to get a man's clothes off in a hurry_ \- and hitched up his tunic, drew a fumbling hand up the bare skin of Randi's stomach. Randi arched against him as Van stroked against a nipple and oh stars, that won him an audible moan.

Enough testing. He yanked Randi's shirt over his head, hard enough he was surprised not to hear tearing or buttons gone astray, and took his own clothes off as rapidly as he could. Shavri took his arm and pulled her lover down to her, even as his eyes held Vanyel's - he lay with an arm curled behind his head, another around her - _stars, that smile has never looked more charming._ He eyed Van's naked body with a boyish boldness that made Vanyel's knees go weak. _Hells with you and your obvious temptations -_ he all but fell on them, teetering at the edge of the bed, head ringing with drunken vertigo. _Gods, Randale, Randale in my bed -_ They shuffled obligingly to give him space and Vanyel found himself lying half-atop Randale, kissing him again, reaching for the laces of his breeches and tugging them with deftness that surprised himself. A hand _\- Shavri -_ traced down Vanyel's back, over his ass, and he felt Randi gasp against his mouth as his hands found flesh and held it. "Van..."

_Oh._

Well. Whatever malady had caused Randale's sterility, it certainly didn't stunt his outward features. _Oh my gods -_ Vanyel gripped him with dumbfounded delicacy, a thumb curled about him and the reach of his spread fingers not enough to stretch from the root of him to the apex. He fumbled upwards. And more upwards. He stared sidelong at Shavri with a hysteric flush of resentment - _all the things we've gossiped about, and you never once bragged to me? I could have been having much more interesting fantasies._ Randi shuddered, bucking into the net of Van's fingers; he squeezed that prize with obliging, wine-fuzzled artlessness. _Is this how you get to be royalty? Great gods, the things I would do with you..._ The thought, the feel of hard flesh, seemed like a flash of delirium in his drink-maddened, furnace-hot blood - his throat still burning smooth, Randale hot in his hand and his breaths hissing in Vanyel's ear, Shavri's smirk tickling his irritation, desire scorching from the inside. His lips were seized - and not by Randale's.

The kiss was - _strange_ , and in its first softness it was like a dash of water on those fires, but he'd _promised_ her. Vanyel cracked open his mouth to Shavri, _have what you will of me_ , and she slipped her tongue inside him, her knee rising over his thigh, trapping her uncomplaining partner below them as their closeness opened her to Vanyel's empathic senses. _Lady_ \- the _want_ in her was searing, a singleminded lust for his potency, ravenously intent on having what it would of his body without caring who he was. It affected him, filled him with echolike ardour - not of his own accord but simply because he was inflamed to be so, so wanted. His spine arched, grinding him against Randale, and he felt Randi twist into his faltering hand in return. _Gods, they need me, they need_ someone _, they want me, it doesn't even matter who they want._

Their lips parted, and Vanyel felt Shavri slide slick off his hip. She reached up to tug him next to her, and he fell easily between them, into Randale's crooked arm. _Not a bad fit_ \- head on Randi's shoulder and Shavri's body tight alongside him. _I knew it was worth holding out for a room with a decent-sized bed._

The scent of her lingered, sweet oddness on his skin; he turned to her, swept hands over her body, tried to find the right places to touch. Shavri hummed and moaned encouragingly, fluttering dark eyes at him. "Why Vanyel, is this - is it the first time you've done this?" she asked.

"No," he replied absently, his thumb brushing her nipple, the hard nub receding unexpectedly into the foreign softness behind. It took a few moments for the question to fully filter through his sluggish drunken wits. "Wait. First time I've done what?"

Her faced creased. "Uh. With - a woman."

He stifled a laugh. _Seventeen, with too much dignity to say 'girl' - oh, youth._ "You'd be the fourth." Randale whistled in his ear, and for a moment Vanyel regretted the admission - _oh gods, I'm drunk, I would never have..._ He wasn't sure Randale had ever bedded anyone except Shavri. He hadn't meant it as a boast - he didn't care for marking bedpost-notches even when it came to people he _wasn't_ incurably disinterested in, and he certainly hadn't meant to measure his manliness against Randale's. _As if I would - or could - for hell's sakes, I wouldn't be that cruel or stupid._

But Randi's whisper was all charm, and his hand ran with intent down Vanyel's back. "Good grief, you keep yourself busy."

 _No I don't. I was young. The first of them was young and pushy, the second was for hire, and the third was Snowlight, and the fourth is Randi's lifebonded -_ Randale's fingers paced out his lower vertebrae, and Shavri's breast bunched between his inadvertently clenched fingers _\- gods, I'm surely the worst lover those poor women have ever had._ She hissed, but from her eyes he knew he hadn't deterred her, not from her lust or her questions. "What did you think I meant?"

"Favours -" The truth slipped halfway out and left her frowning, and him tongue-tied, as if it defied explanation even to another friend in the same place. "I - I helped someone else three years ago. That's how I knew of it."

Shavri's jaw lay slack against the pillow.

Randi's hand stopped cold on the curve of his ass and Vanyel wished, fervently, that the mattress would swallow him up whole. _I am the worst of fools. I could have pretended I thought she was asking if this was the first time I bedded a couple -_ He breathed hard enough for the three of them as they breathed not at all, and he cursed himself with silent viciousness. _She'll never lay eyes on my other children, she didn't need any more reason to dwell on my part in this. I shouldn't have told her. I'm sorry._

In the strained quiet, he thought he felt them conferring, one either side of him, secret thoughts passing over his head like tiny arrows. Shavri gave him a smile that hurt his heart. "Oh Van, I'm never sure if I know you."

She kissed him, more slowly, just as peculiar, dry lips wrapped against his. It didn't keep away the loneliness, but it jarred him to realise that she _still_ wanted him - a tug like a dark current as they touched, and he had the sinking sense she _liked_ the thought of his tested potency. She turned on her back and grabbed his wrist, drew his hand down where she wanted it. He tried to oblige her, two fingers in wet folds, and she gasped, moved on him. Gods, none of the other three had been so enthusiastic - not for _him_ , anyway, for his position, once, for his money; Snowlight had been impersonally gentle with him, treated him like a tool for her ritual ecstasies. Shavri - he looked down and saw clear _strands_ of her between his parted fingertips. _That's..._

He imagined he might feel this sort of confused revulsion if he had been asked to eat a stone.

The seconds drew out as he shrank from her withering heat, and again he hoped that his bed might find its appetite where his had so deserted him. _Why me?_ , as if he'd not asked himself ten thousand times already - he wished desperately he had the eyes to find her beauty, the gift of her friendship, warm to him instead of cold.

Or at least the nerve to apologise. _I can't keep even the least of my promises. I am never, ever living this down, am I?_

But Randi, blessed Randi who had no cause to be so giving, snaked an arm about Vanyel's waist and cupped his faltering flesh in his hand. He didn't - thankfully, nobly didn't - say anything; but he _knew_ what Van needed. He pressed close behind hm, lips to Vanyel's collarbone, and Vanyel felt his erect swell at the root of his spine - fingers tracing lower, parting him around the insistent head of his cock. Oh - _ohh_ \- the glans nestled by his entrance, and he didn't know if Randi's hand tightened or if he just grew into its kneading grip, a guiding touch toward a selfless destination. _Shavri..._ Her arms reached out for him, hooking about his neck.

"Randi," he pleaded. "Just stay behind me." No reply, not in words - _please, yes please, don't say anything_ \- and Randale _bit_ him and let him go, let him lie between Shavri's open legs. Slipping into her was so easy - and she gasped as she enveloped him, a breath exhaled in shrill pieces. Randi's weight settled over him and her legs came up, hooking around _both_ of them. He felt Randi's hardness at his tailbone, a drop of moisture against his skin.

He thrust into Shavri and she moaned in fragmented rhythm - not right, and he felt like he was rushing towards _something_ , seeking something elusive that got further from him with every movement. She felt foreign, not warm enough, not tight enough, keening and moving under him, clenching around him, and it felt _good_ , a satin-smooth welcome to the interloper in her body - but - none of that sense of fitting and belonging that he _craved_ with a man.

And Randi knew. A hand again, splayed on his buttocks, a finger slipping in his crack. Toying with him, pad of a thumb stroking just where it was needed - " _You_ seem to know what you're doing," he hissed in accusation.

Randi grunted in affirmative, and Shavri answered for him with broken words. "Is there - any - anything we haven't tried?"

"I can think of one or two," Randi muttered.

She laughed, even as she raised her hips into Vanyel's body. "You should tell me, later."

Vanyel closed his eyes and tried not to indulge his jealousy at their _later_ , tried to move in her without feeling its barbs about him, tried not to want to vanish from between them, a shadow-layer between a man and a woman, an artifice of need, wanted, not _loved_. But gods, she was moaning, and the someone she'd chosen to pull inside her was him. Lips behind his throat and a strong hand under his body, an unspeakably fine cock against his flesh - Randale hard for _him_ \- it was a warm loneliness, a welcoming desolation, physical pleasure a solace for no more or less than the moment. A hand around his cock again, _oh gods Randi, you're feeling this_ , the liquid slip and animal scent of her soaking wet in his nether hair, Randi cupping his tighting balls and threatening, offering, the huge tip pulsing in his crack _do you mean to fuck me raw?_

Shavri shuddered on him, crying out and tightening around his cock, and he _felt_ her, echo-pleasure as her clenching thighs pulled him deep into her, Randi grinding on him with abandon, and his pleasure matched hers for an odd, suspended moment, eyes screwing closed as he let himself be wrung out in their arms. Deeper. As she wanted, all she wanted from him. All he could ever give to them.

Vanyel came back to his senses and tried to shrug out of their tangled sprawl of limbs. Randi had an arm around him, keeping him close even as Shavri curled aside on his bedsheets - _oh Randi, there was no joy for you in that, was there? Was there? You must have felt what I did to her_ \- He turned to look Randale in the eye, hoping he still could, and Randi smiled and thumped his shoulder playfully. _Gods, you've more nerve and faith than I even guessed. You_ know _who she's going home with, tonight and every night._

_You know which of us will always sleep alone._

Van leaned in to kiss him before the numbness could take hold in the beats between his aftershocks, and then pulled away gently, slid between Randale's knees, took that cock in his hands again - one, then the other, his eight stacked fingerwidths barely scaling the whole. "Randi," he whispered. "Most likely you'll be King one day - don't you think I should get used to being on my knees for you?"

"You filthy -"

A swipe of Vanyel's tongue seemed to divert Randale from the rest of his protestations, and he teased the tiny eyeslit, stealing the salt-taste gathered there. He felt a flailing finger of Mindspeech against his shields, and contentedly ignored it - _not now, I don't want your words or your intimacies, and you don't want mine, so lie back and enjoy me for just a moment_ \- and he closed his eyes and felt Randi blurring with Shavri in his inner vision, heard a squeak of springs as she rose to watch them.

He set his lips around Randale and lowered them tight and slowly around that thick heat, slipping each finger away one by one. Where his mouth couldn't - couldn't possibly - reach the base, he pressed fingers as if striking chords, playing with him, lips up and down and pausing with each inch to swirl his tongue against the underside and find out where Randi was most sensitive. He meant it. He really _meant_ it, a favour, a gift and an honour, a supplication to a young friend he _knew_ had it in him to be a leader and a father. _And I'll never be able to show it to you this way again._

Shavri moved, a curved shadow on his eyelids, and he heard them kissing, felt Randale buck inside his mouth. Vanyel slackened the force of his touches, feeling Shavri join in his teasing, sensed lingering lips and flickering hands that knew all of Randale's secrets, pried them out as Van's lips ran slow and steady over his cock. The great size of it was more straining than he'd anticipated, and he lifted his head and gave Randale's tip a languous, soft-tongued kiss, relaxing each muscle in his overworked jaw before sliding back down to his task.

His eyes opened, and he noted what Shavri was doing with her free hand, and was surprised not to mind it - with the one-and-the-sameness of them inside his heart, the way they ran together in his senses as he closed his eyes again, the drunkenness that let him blot out all proprieties, her self-pleasure seemed only appropriate. Because - and he _tried_ to stretch down to the base of Randi's cock again, tried to open his throat around it - whatever he might wish in the selfish moment, she, not he, was the only reason Van was here.

"Van," Randi warned, entirely unnecessary, and Vanyel took his balls in one hand and toyed gently as they tightened. He stilled at the taste of seed in the back of his mouth, swallowed once Randi slackened. Van breathed deep, and sat up on his knees to look at them, arm in arm and spent together. _In my bed._ He had to smile at that.

It _almost_ hurt, slipping a hand atop the joining of theirs. _But it's what Moondance always told me - I can still share in this, be warmed by their hearthfire. If only for one hour of one night. Never quite belonging, but welcomed all the same._

**Author's Note:**

> I amnestied two deleted lead-in scenes for this fic [over here](http://last-herald-mage.dreamwidth.org/12152.html) \- not much to it except Van angsting, but I hear that is a popular subject matter in these parts.


End file.
